Former Watergate prosecutor: Comey's firing is as bad as the Saturday Night Massacre

Shawn Thew / EPA

Protesters rally in opposition to President Donald J. Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey at the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 10, 2017.

Protesters rally in opposition to President Donald J. Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey at the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 10, 2017.

(Shawn Thew / EPA)

Jill Wine-Banks

As one of three assistant special prosecutors who tried Watergate's obstruction of justice case, I know obstruction when I see it.

And President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey — days after Comey asked for more money and resources for the bureau's investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government — is obstruction on the magnitude of Watergate. It is comparable to the smoking gun tape that revealed the first step in the Watergate cover-up — an attempt by President Richard Nixon and his top aides to use the CIA to stop the FBI investigation before it uncovered the link between the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the White House and Nixon's campaign. They had planned to use false claims that the FBI investigation would interfere with national security.

My advice to today's FBI: Don't quit now.

Comey was clearly wrong to go public about an ongoing investigation (especially just days before Election Day), to offer his opinion of whether there was a prosecutable offense and to seemingly treat the Trump investigation more favorably than Clinton's. Firing Comey now is a threat to democracy.

The misconduct accusations being used as justification for firing Comey occurred before the Nov. 8 election, when then-candidate Trump heaped praise on Comey. Now Trump views Comey's alleged misconduct as a reason to fire him. Of course, Trump's praise came at a time when, as a candidate, he was the beneficiary — not the target — of Comey's extraordinary violation of the rules governing every prosecutor and FBI agent. The timing of the firing invites no conclusion but that it is an interference with an investigation that implicates the man doing the firing.

During Watergate, the question was "What did the president know and when did he know it?" Today, the question is "Why now?" Comey was serving a 10-year term and, while he clearly misbehaved before the election, firing him in the midst of his supervising an investigation potentially implicating Trump and his aides makes the stated reasons for the termination unbelievable.

The only believable explanation for the firing is that the FBI investigation is getting somewhere and poses a threat to Trump.

Interference by the president in an investigation that could possibly implicate him is an obstruction of justice, a cover-up and a violation of his constitutional duties. It is an abuse of presidential power and just one of many parallels between Trump and Nixon. It must be seen for what it is: an impeachable offense.

Comey's firing, especially combined with Trump's previous dismissal of acting Attorney General Sally Yates, is as bad as the events of the Saturday Night Massacre, when Nixon fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and accepted the resignations of Attorney General Elliott Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, whose courage in standing up to Nixon should be applauded and replicated. Those who supported Nixon ended up in jail.

Could firing Comey be one brazen act too many, the one that will turn the public against Trump like the Saturday Night Massacre did to Nixon? Three days after Nixon refused to comply with a court order to turn over the tapes of his White House conversations about Watergate and firing Cox, the public outcry was so overwhelming that he was forced to reverse course, turn over the tapes and appoint a new special prosecutor.

Like Comey, I was out of town when the news broke. I was in New York and received a phone message from a colleague informing me that the FBI had seized our offices and files and that it was possible that I and all the other assistant Watergate prosecutors had been fired. I returned immediately to Washington to participate in the discussion of whether we should quit in protest if we hadn't been fired. Cox wisely advised us that we knew the evidence better than anyone and that if we hadn't been fired, we should stay and see the case through. If any FBI agents are considering quitting in protest of President Trump's brazenly political act, they shouldn't — unless and until Trump puts in place a new FBI director who is unambiguously beholden to him and if that new director interferes with the investigation.

We should all hope for the appointment of a special prosecutor who is as ethical and independent as Cox was.

FBI agents must continue to do their best to uncover the truth about any wrongdoing in the White House. They cannot quit now.

Jill Wine-Banks, a former assistant Watergate special prosecutor, lives in Evanston.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 12, 2017, in the News section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "WORSE THAN WATERGATE - ‘You're fired' on reality TV is not the same as firing the FBI director" —
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